Rocket blows off despite victory

Monday 26 April 2010 20:30 BST

Ronnie O'Sullivan

Ronnie O'Sullivan kept his composure in the arena but lost it in a television interview backstage after firing three brilliant centuries to knock Mark Williams out of the Betfred.com World Championship.

The three-time champion, who will play Mark Selby in the quarter-finals, took offence at being described as his "own harshest critic" in a BBC interview and warned he would walk out if that point was ever put to him again.

"If someone says that to me again I'm going to stop the interview," O'Sullivan told interviewer Rob Walker. "I'm fed up with hearing that. When you play poor snooker, you play poor snooker. I don't listen to people saying I'm my own harshest critic. You don't know what you're talking about."

But considering the Crucible audience were on their feet to acclaim his brilliant 13-10 win against Williams, while O'Sullivan saw little to enjoy from the performance, it hardly seemed like the grotesque assessment it was clearly taken to be.

O'Sullivan claimed "sheer panic and desperation" inspired him to produce the five-star snooker which carried him past Williams.

Breaks of 53, 104, 75, 111 and 106 came from the cue of O'Sullivan in the deciding session, and Welshman Williams later said of his conqueror: "Everything about his game is spot on. The only person who can beat him in this World Championship is himself."

In the press conference which followed the BBC interview, O'Sullivan played down his chances of adding to the world titles he won in 2001, 2004 and 2008.

"There's no point me getting carried away because over the years I've thrown two or three world titles away," he said. "I know why but I can't cure it. I can't afford to let myself get confident."

Ali Carter joined O'Sullivan in the quarter-finals with a 13-11 victory over Joe Perry, after almost failing to take advantage of a 10-6 overnight lead. Perry won five frames in a row to jump 11-10 ahead, but 2008 runner-up Carter fired in breaks of 104 and 82 to edge ahead and then stayed composed to win frame 24 with two scoring visits.

Carter said: "At 11-10 down I was looking adversity in the face but I managed to turn the tide and pull it out of the bag. I think it was a case of how badly you want it, and I didn't want to be going home."